


Takin' No Lip From The Night Before

by APgeeksout



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s07e02 Hello Cruel World, Jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-07
Updated: 2011-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:30:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title snagged from Tom Waits' "Spare Parts 1"</p>
    </blockquote>





	Takin' No Lip From The Night Before

**Author's Note:**

> Title snagged from Tom Waits' "Spare Parts 1"

Sean Mills must have been a runner.  Or a swimmer.  Or at least a man whose main exercise didn’t involve chasing down spell ingredients and dodging hexes.  His dark suit is a passable fit through the shoulders and the pants are neither too long nor too short, but Bobby’s not too proud to admit that he could use another inch or two in the waist.  Everything fastens, but he’s breathed easier.  

Not that it matters one way or the other, since the sight that greets him in the hospital room would steal his breath anyway.  

Sam has been a big guy pretty much from the moment he stopped being a little boy, but he’s dwarfed by the equipment that crowds close around him, all of it blinking and beeping and whirring.  He’s connected to it by a network of leads and tubes, swaddled in tape and bandages, and lying so still in the center of it all, he looks delicate and discarded.  

Of course, Bobby knows better than to be deceived by appearances.  Even with his head on crooked, Sam’s one of the strongest men he’s ever known.  And the other is hunched in a wheelchair, as close to his brother’s bedside as the machines and the chair’s footrest, extended to support a fresh plaster cast, will allow.  

He crosses the threshhold and closes the door behind him.  

“Sure you wanna leave your back to the door?  Any old riff-raff could creep in on you if you’re not careful.”  

“Bobby!” Dean’s voice is rough, just like the rest of his appearance: dark circles under his eyes, hair flattened against his head, a thin hospital-issue robe replacing his usual protective shell of leather and canvas. 

Dean fumbles with the wheels of the chair, movements jerky in the tight quarters.  Chair’ll steer like a cow until he puts himself at ease with it, but there’s no way he’ll use it outside the hospital, and no way Bobby’s leaving these boys here long enough for them to make peace with anything, so it doesn’t bear considering.  He uses the two good legs God or the devil gave him to walk over to where the boy sits, still turned halfway toward his brother.  

It makes them all feel better to let on like he’s a hard old bastard most of the time, but there’s no pretending his heart does anything but break when Dean wraps both arms around his middle and presses his face into his belly, the jagged noise he’s making muffled by the dead man’s jacket.

The flimsy cover story he’s got half-baked will be blown if any of the staff happen to look in, but he finds he can’t do a single damn thing but stand there with one hand on Dean’s hair and the other between his trembling shoulders.  Truth be told, he needs this too.   

“Why do you smell like a cedar chest?” Dean asks, soft but steadier than before.

“Borrowed.  Didn’t think to store my G-man suit off-site.”  He deliberately ruffles Dean’s hair as the boy turns him loose and sits back in the chair.  

“So I probably shouldn’t wipe my nose on you, then.”  He’s trying for in-control smart-ass and almost selling it, even to Bobby.  “I’m sorry about your place.”  

“All the important stuff survived,” he says with a look that takes in his own sorry self and both brothers.  He takes another step to the bedside and gives Sam’s knee a careful squeeze through the hospital bedding.  

“We’re going to have to move him,” he says, surveying the equipment that surrounds the bed warily.  

Dean nods his agreement.  “Nurse Ratched and Doctor Feelgood and all the fucking candystripers will want to carve off a slice if we stay.  How do we do this?”

A sharp, official rap sounds at the door, and Jodie Mills pushes into the room, stride all business, wearing her uniform, radio, and sidearm and brandishing a sheaf of phony court documents.  

“We all set in here, Agent Whitney?” she asks, and Lord help him if she doesn’t follow it up with a wink.  

“You boys are about to be taken into federal custody,” Bobby says, choosing not to acknowledge the shrewd glance Dean shoots between the Sheriff and himself.  “Y’all’ve faked your deaths before, so the Bureau is disinclined to let you mend here before serving those warrants.”

“We’ve lined up an ambulance and some private nurses for the ride.  If we can do this fast - before the whole staff gets replaced by monsters or somebody recognizes Bobby Singer all cleaned up - then I think we can carry it off.  The people who are still people here trust me,” she gives the papers in her hands a convincing glare, “when I tell them all of this b.s. ties our hands, they’ll believe me at least for as long as it takes us to get out the door.”

It’s not an overwhelmingly solid plan, but they’ve gone to work with less.  And their backup is pretty damn impressive.  

Jodie takes the cuffs from her belt and bends down to secure Dean’s wrists. “Let’s give ‘em a good show,” she says, breaking into a sudden conspiratorial grin.   

“You’re taking a pretty big risk for us,” Dean says, voice gone husky again.  “Thank you.”

She shakes off the gratitude.  “Too many good people have already been eaten in my town, on my watch.  Not letting it happen again.  Plus,” she smiles slowly, and the wicked look she slants up over Dean’s head pins Bobby in place.  “I’ve already got a few ideas about how Bobby here is going to make it up to me when we all get out of this.” 


End file.
